


Heart of Stone

by rangerhitomi



Category: Pokemon Ranger
Genre: Anime/Manga Fusion, Canon Expansion, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-10
Updated: 2018-04-07
Packaged: 2018-12-13 11:53:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 11,991
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11759298
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rangerhitomi/pseuds/rangerhitomi
Summary: On an inspection of the abandoned oil fields, Kellyn and Kate are thrust in the middle of an enormous poaching operation, headed by none other than the ruthless Pokémon Hunter J. Can the pair succeed where others have failed in stopping her?





	1. Mission Start

**Author's Note:**

> For a long time I thought it was interesting how Pokemon Hunter J seemed to know Kellyn in the DP anime, so I came up with this idea of him and Kate thwarting her plans in Almia.

A storm raged to the west, rumbling closer to the ocean as it cast torrential rains and flashes of lightning over the Chroma Highlands and eastern Puel. The ocean churned violently, gusts of wind causing massive waves that crashed over the coast.

Farther out to sea, two Staraptor circled an abandoned offshore oil rig before arcing away, farther from the storm. On the back of one Staraptor was a young man in the uniform of Almia’s Area Rangers; on the other, a young woman in a similar uniform. He gestured at her and yelled over the roaring wind:

“Trouble.”

She glanced back, hair standing nearly straight in the air from the force of the wind. Sitting atop what should have been an abandoned helicopter landing pad for a long-abandoned oil field in the middle of what was promising to be a powerful storm, was an enormous black aircraft. She had never seen one quite like it: on either side of the main body were two turbo engines. Even from their distance, she could see people moving crates from inside the rig into the airship.

“Let’s go back.”

In tandem, they directed the Staraptor to swoop as low to the churning waves as possible, and when they were out of sight of the oil field, dropped from their rides into the ocean.

The local water types were friendly toward them, having helped them on numerous occasions, and the pair had no difficulty at all getting help to safely swim them back toward the rig underwater. The currents became stronger the closer they got; it seemed the storm was moving east much faster than either had thought.

It had been an Area Ranger on routine patrol who had alerted the Union to possibly suspicious activities taking place in Altru’s abandoned oil rigs. Nothing should be taking place there, Chairperson Erma had decided, and when Altru insisted they were trying to find ways to repurpose the site but that they were not currently using the site, it fell to Top Rangers Kate and Kellyn to investigate.

They broke the water’s surface. Kellyn pulled his underwater breathing apparatus from his mouth and grabbed hold of one of the rig’s support beams.

“What do you think?”

Kate tucked her apparatus in her side pouch and held onto the beam as well to keep from getting pushed away from the force of the water and wind. “Didn’t look like Dim Sun.”

“No.” Kellyn glanced up the ladder. Over the sound of the wind he could make out faint voices. A mischievous grin broke out over his face. “Want to get closer?”

He didn’t wait for her response before beginning his ascent.

“Wouldn’t make a difference if I said no, now would it?”

The two climbed the ladder, footsteps clanking as they climbed up the side of the rig, but neither made an effort to mask the sound. There was enough noise between the oncoming storm and the ruckus of crates being dragged across the rig’s surface. When they reached the top, Kellyn hesitated. If anyone was in their general vicinity—clear on the other side of the rig from the airship and basically underneath a tanker—they would be detected if they popped their heads up unannounced. That would cause problems.

Kate seemed to be having a similar thought process and started digging through her pouch before pulling out a compact mirror. At Kellyn’s lifted eyebrow, she whispered as quietly as she could while still being heard, “I got tired of getting surprised around corners.”

He gave her a grin and a thumbs-up as she cautiously held the compact out, tilting it enough to see up on the platform. Higher… higher…

“Clear,” she declared, and swung herself up on the platform.

They ducked through a few large, empty tanks and headed toward the helipad. Several of the tanks were rusty; it hadn’t been used for oil in years. It appeared the newcomers didn’t have any use for the tanks either, because Kellyn and Kate were able to get close enough to the aircraft by ducking behind them that they were able to see what was going on more clearly through the use of Kate’s mirror.

A few crates still stood on the platform, ready to be loaded, and a couple of Machoke assisted in lifting a few others into the cargo hold. Kellyn glanced over at the ship itself, which was enormous and unlike any ship he had ever seen before.

“You know what kind of ship this is?” he whispered to Kate.

She shook her head and tilted the mirror again to get a better look at the cargo hold. “It’s huge. Dim Sun would have killed for an aerial cargo ship that big.”

“It’s not them?” He knew the answer already.

“Uh-uh. Look.”

The mirror focused on a woman who stood outside the ship, arms crossed. She wore a headset and a pair of sunglasses, despite the rapidly darkening sky, and a long coat; behind her was one of the largest, most vicious-looking Drapion that Kellyn had ever seen.

“Never seen her before,” Kate muttered. “At any rate, she looks like the type who would be more than happy to break Kincaid’s spine over her knee as soon as he tried telling her what to do.”

Kellyn was inclined to agree.

“What is taking so long?” the woman demanded, glancing at her wrist. “This was supposed to take an hour, it’s already taken two.”

There was a rumble of apologies and quickened footsteps.

“We need the second shipment as well, which is going to take another half hour to load thanks to your collective incompetence, so I’m going to get some coffee while you morons _step it up_.”

There was another rumbled _yes, sir_ and even faster movement.

Kellyn nudged Kate and gestured toward the door that led into the rig. It was closer to them from behind the tanks, and the woman was taking the long way around to avoid them. If they hurried, they could easily sneak in before she reached sight of the door. With all of the woman’s lackies focused on cramming the crates into the ship, there were none left at the far end of the platform, and they reached the door with time to spare.

It was uncomfortably quiet out of the roaring wind, and Kellyn was hyperaware of their footsteps echoing in the halls as they ran. If the woman heard them—

He skidded to a halt and grabbed Kate by the arm to slow her down. “We’ve got enough of a head start,” he whispered.

Kate bit her lip. “Yeah.” She glanced around and squinted at a door at the end of the hall. “That one. There are computers in there, so if they’re using this as a base, maybe—”

They cleared the hallway in a few soft but hurried steps, and found the door locked. Kate bent to examine the keypad.

“A print scanner,” she declared.

Kellyn peered up the hall. He didn’t hear any footsteps yet, but it was only a matter of time. From the door, the woman would have only three minutes to reach them—which meant they maybe had a minute and a half, tops. “Any chance our handprint will open it?”

She was already working on unscrewing the plate. “Working on it.”

“How long will it take you to disable this?”

“It’s incredibly basic. Thirty seconds.” She pulled the plate off and scoffed. “Nah, fifteen.”

Faint footsteps filled the hall—the woman was moving at a brisk pace. Kellyn knew Kate would take care of the lock in only a few seconds, but he still felt a twinge of anxiety.

“She’s coming,” he whispered.

“I’m _working on it_ ,” she replied around the screwdriver held in her teeth. She adjusted a wire, flipped a tiny switch, and the door clicked. Kellyn slid it open. “There. I gotta screw the plate back on, five seconds.”

She placed the plate back over the exposed wires and switches and twirled her fingers deftly to screw it back into place before slipping into the room after Kellyn.

They pressed themselves against the door in the pitch-black room and waited.

Footsteps came closer…

…and walked past.

Kellyn exhaled slowly.

“Did you doubt I could do it?” Kate whispered, though her voice sounded a little teasing.

“Can’t help it, that woman gives me major bad vibes.” He slid a hand along the wall for the light switch. “No light is going to get under the cracks, right?”

“Nah, it’s built into the floor and ceiling. Go ahead.”

He flipped the switch, forgetting for a moment that his eyes were adjusted to the dimly lit hallways. Kate grumbled, hand over her face; she seemed to have forgotten, too.

Both turned their attention to the computer console, where the main console was in sleep mode. Kate jiggled the mouse a few times until it woke up; they faced an Altru login screen.

“Is Altru behind this?” Kellyn muttered. “Or is it too much to hope these bad guys were too lazy to set up their own system?”

“Guess we’ll find out.” Kate bent over the keyboard, fingers clicking on the keys.

“Didn’t know you knew how to hack.”

“I don’t.” Kate hit the enter key and straightened up, grinning. “Isaac _still_ hasn’t changed his password from when he was working here a few months ago.”

Kellyn snorted and turned to the screen as Kate pulled up recent files. “They were logged in as guests, but Isaac has administrative access to all accounts on this server. Looks like they’re pretty organized. Look—ship manifestos, a few…” She tilted her head. “What are these? Passwords?”

He peered at them. Several numbers in a row, grouped together. One set read _43431441, 141812500;_ another _43062096, 141354376._

“Coordinates. Look.” He leaned over and pulled up a map. “The top set is...” He typed in the string of numbers and straightened up, frowning. “Sinnoh.”

“Sinnoh?” Kate’s expression mirrored his. “That’s halfway across the world.”

He typed in the second set, though he already knew what he would find. The third, fourth, fifth…

“All Sinnoh. Whatever is being loaded on this ship is going to different parts of Sinnoh.” He gestured at the minimized files. “What do the manifestos say?”

“Not much.” Kate tapped her finger on the desk. “Just ‘goods.’ And the coordinates. Which goods go to which coordinates, I guess.”

He pointed at a time and date listed halfway down the file and flipped open his Vatonage Styler to check the time. “That’s today… thirty-five minutes from now.” He folded his arms and leaned against the desk. “Whatever they’re moving, they don’t have much time, and neither do we.”

But, he reflected, that was part of the problem; if they didn’t know what kinds of goods they were dealing with, they might put their lives in danger. The goods could be anything from weapons to biological hazards to biofuels, and one misstep could be disastrous. “Is there anything in there at all that might tell us what we’re up against?”

“Well…” Kate looked up. “There’s reference to a person named ‘J.’”

“Jay?”

“No, J, like the letter,” Kate explained. “They’re in here a few times.”

_J… J…_ Kellyn searched his memory. Now that she mentioned it, he was sure he had read about someone named J in a newspaper recently. It wasn’t the _Almia Times_ , nor a newspaper from Fiore or Oblivia, he was sure about that. A newspaper from some other region, maybe?

_Sinnoh._

“The woman,” he said suddenly, “she’s J. From Sinnoh.” When Kate looked up at him quizzically, he plowed on. “I remember reading an article from a Sinnoh newspaper about a woman who hunts Pokémon. She kidnaps them and sells them to her clients for a lot of money.”

“If that’s true… what is she doing… in…”

Kate’s question fizzled out halfway through; she knew as well as Kellyn what someone like J was doing in Almia.

“The cargo,” Kellyn said, voice hollow. “The cargo is Pokémon.”

 


	2. Planning

Neither moved. Kate wasn’t even sure what _to_ do; they had dealt with kidnappers, poachers, and all manner of thieves before, but there was something in Kellyn’s expression that told Kate that J was far worse than a simple bounty hunter.

Nearly a minute passed before Kellyn let out a resigned sigh and asked, “what does it say about a second shipment of” –his face twisted—“ _goods_?”

Kate moved her numb fingers over the keyboard and pulled up a file. “There’s a second shipment that’s supposed to be here in…” She checked the time on her Styler. “Half an hour.”

“ _More of them_?”

There was a bitterness in Kellyn’s expression that Kate hadn’t seen since Kincaid had revealed he used the Ranger School to recruit teenagers to help a multi-billion dollar energy corporation mass-brainwash thousands of Pokémon. His jaw was set, his eyes glaring sharply into the screen. Though he rested his hand on the desk in a casual stance, his fist was clenched.

She understood his anger. The shipment that J already had was enormous as it was, and neither knew how long it had taken her to go around Almia collecting Pokémon for her clients. Had she been there for days? Weeks? How had the Union not noticed until now?

“Kellyn,” she began.

“We have to free the Pokémon already aboard the ship,” he interrupted. “Afterward, we can stop the second shipment.”

She didn’t doubt that they _could_ free the Pokémon on their own, but she also had a sneaking suspicion that it would be an exhausting task. “It’d be easier if we called for backup,” she suggested.

He nodded and turned away from the computer to flip open his Styler. “Voicemail.”

They waited a few seconds before a crackly “go ahead” answered them.

“We’ve got a large-scale poaching operation at the abandoned offshore oil fields. Backup would be helpful.”

There was a long pause.

“—eat, did—py.”

“A lot of interference,” Kate whispered. “We’re far offshore as it is, but the weather might be affecting Puel’s transmission towers. The town’s probably in the middle of the storm right now.”

Kellyn sighed in frustration and said in a low, clear voice, “Need backup. Now.”

Pause.

“Ten-four, un—not—orm—an hour—“

“Did not copy. Did you say backup will be here in an hour?”

Pause, crackle. “Neg—orm, we won’t—send—hour.”

Kellyn tapped his Styler impatiently. “Is there anything you can do to improve the reception on this thing?”

Kate held out her hands placatingly. “There’s nothing wrong with the Styler, just the transmitter.”

“So do you have any idea what the hell they’re saying?”

“Mm…” She frowned. “Something about the storm. They can’t send anyone out in it, it’s too dangerous… the storm might pass off the mainland soon, but we’re on our own until it does. No one’s gonna be able to get out here for at least forty-five minutes even in safe weather.”

“Super.” Kellyn tapped his Styler again. “Send someone as soon as you are able. Radio silence in the meantime.”

There was a garbled response that might have been an affirmative or a request for him to repeat, but time was running out and neither had the patience to decipher it.

“So.” Kellyn snapped the screen on his Styler shut. “Wanna blow up an aircraft?”

* * *

 

It wasn’t quite as simple as “blowing up an aircraft,” though as they stared at it from behind the rusted oil tanks, Kate began wishing it was.

Somehow, the two of them had to 1) stall the aircraft, 2) get aboard it, 3) free the Pokémon being held hostage and hope they didn’t attack their saviors, 4) get off the aircraft, and 5) arrest the most notorious Pokémon poacher in the entire Sinnoh region. All in the middle of a storm. Against at least fifteen probably armed, reasonably competent, and very cranky criminals.

“Six,” Kellyn whispered to her as loud as he dared over the roaring wind, “don’t get caught.”

“Thanks. That didn’t occur to me but it’s a good idea, thanks.”

Kellyn peered over the tank and squinted against the rain slapping him in the face. “Any idea how that aircraft works?”

Kate shook her head, bangs sticking to her forehead. “I’ve never seen one like it before. I have no idea whether it has a rotary blade or something else because of the way the turboshaft engines point downward.”

“Don’t all aircraft have a similar component you might be able to mess up?”

“Why would you assume I know anything about aircraft?”

“I don’t know, you know a lot about mechanics!”

The wind was picking up and Kate shivered. They had been wearing wet clothes earlier but neither had really noticed since the uniforms had thermal properties and the wind wasn’t so bad, but now that the temperature was rapidly dropping and the storm spraying icy water all over them, she was starting to get cold. “I don’t know if you know this,” she said, pointing at the aircraft, “but there’s a difference between mechanical engineers and aeronautical engineers.”

“What would that be?”

“One is what I can reasonably do and the other I don’t even know how to spell.”

Kellyn shoved his hair out of his eyes and scowled. “Surely you know _something_.”

Kate tapped a finger on the tank and peered at the ship, where J stood yelling at people before retreating up the ramp. Time was almost up. She bit her lip. “I only know enough from what I’ve read in books. I’ve never actually taken apart a rotary turbine before.”

“We don’t need to take it apart. Just keep it on the ground for an hour.”

“Okay.” She leaned back and closed her eyes. “On a normal helicopter, there’s the rotary system. It’s held in place by something called a—a—” She grimaced. “A rotor nut or something. Anyway, this piece is a gear, about—about the size of my hand.” She held her hand up. “It’s a small piece, but if it were to break, go missing, or otherwise stop functioning properly, the whole helicopter is screwed.”

“That sounds like a major design flaw.”

“Some recent designs don’t have this rotor nut. This design is way more advanced than anything I’ve seen, so maybe it solved this problem.”

“If you get into the turbo things will you be able to see it?”

“Right away. It’s a pretty important piece.”

“Can you break it?”

“Probably not. Probably won’t even be able to remove the whole thing, it’s usually locked in place pretty snugly and all I’ve got tool-wise is a screwdriver, a wrench, and a small socket wrench.”

“What do you need to remove the whole thing?”

“A big socket wrench. Preferably a power tool.”

Kellyn sighed, spitting out some rainwater in the process. “ _Anything_?”

Kate leaned her head against the tank and furrowed her brow. “Might not be able to remove the whole piece, but removing even one washer or bolt would throw the whole thing off.”

“You can do that?” Kellyn sounded more hopeful and Kate didn’t want to let him down by reminding him that this entire hackneyed plan depended solely on the fact that Hunter J’s rotorcraft had a main rotor nut holding the rotor blades in place.

“If not that, then I could try my best to bend one of the blades. They’re very solid, though, so it would be extremely hard to do.”

“We’re getting somewhere.” Kellyn had a glint in his eye, the same kind he always got before they embarked on some kind of life-threatening mission. He lived for the rush, Kate knew, him and Keith both; that rush of adrenaline and the pounding of the heart and the thrill of _living_. He was ready to stop sitting around planning and start _doing,_ and she had to play her part to perfection to keep him living.

Still, there was a twinge of excitement at the back of her mind, too.

She followed him back to the support beams, ducking behind the tanks to keep out of sight, though it was rapidly darkening and the sheets of rain obstructed their view of J and the aircraft, and Kellyn crouched next to the edge of the platform, peering at the churning ocean beneath.

“What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to create a diversion.”

“That’s almost as dangerous as climbing into a rotary engine without knowing when it’s going to start up and cut off a body part,” Kate argued as Kellyn pulled his respirator out of his pouch. “If J catches you—”

“You think she’s going to let you walk up to her aircraft and take out her engine?”

Kate didn’t answer.

“Look.” Kellyn straightened up and placed a hand on Kate’s shoulder. “You’ve got the hard job but no one can do it but you. A diversion can keep them grounded for a few minutes, but stalling the engine could be enough to keep them grounded until backup gets here.”

“If you get caught?”

Thunder rumbled.

He grinned. “What’s the worst she could do to me?”

She could think of at least a few things ranging from mild discomfort to death, but there wasn’t anything she could say to change his mind once he had it made up, so she resigned herself to the grueling task of climbing through the entire maze of cold, slippery metal bars that made up the platform’s support beams so she could reach the other side where J’s aircraft waited without being seen. It would have been an impossible task barehanded, but her gloves had a ribbed rubber material on the palms and fingertips that allowed her to grip a normal Styler under slippery conditions and were therefore ideal for things like swinging on monkey bars, if by swinging on monkey bars meant swinging on wet metal rods under an abandoned oil field platform miles out to sea in the middle of a thunderstorm.

This is a terrible idea, she wanted to say, and there was no way everything would go according to plan, and his creating a diversion would surely result in him getting caught, but she didn’t say anything and simply wished Kellyn good luck as he climbed down the bars and dropped into the churning waters below.


	3. Diversionary Tactics

The water was freezing.

It wasn’t as though he expected anything different from the sea in late autumn during a storm, but it was jarring nonetheless. Had it been this cold when he and Kate had jumped in just an hour earlier?

He gripped the underwater support beam to keep from getting caught up in the rapid current, made worse from the intensity of the high winds of the impending storm, and peered through the dark waters for a reasonably speedy Pokémon to carry him back around to the dock. Just when he was beginning to wonder whether he would have more luck randomly releasing his capture disc and swinging his arm wildly around than actually _seeing_ anything, or even whether it would be faster to swim around by himself, a pinprick of light caught his attention.

_Thank gods for Lanturn,_ he thought, and captured it with ease.

He gestured for the Lanturn to follow him to the surface, and when they broke the water, he took the breathing apparatus from his mouth. “I need you to take me out and around to the dock,” he explained. “Once I’m out of the water, you should go back underwater until the storm ends.”

Maybe the Lanturn sensed his restlessness through the capture bond, or maybe it just didn’t like the thought of being close to the surface in the middle of a storm, but Kellyn noticed its own look of unease as it nodded. He put the apparatus back in his mouth, grabbed hold, and gave Lanturn a reassuring pat before they dived back underwater.

It took only a few minutes for Lanturn to circle around the rig and reach the dock. When they surfaced and Kellyn hauled himself ashore with a whispered “thanks” that was drowned out by the wind, thunder rumbled in the distance.

_Well,_ he thought, shivering in the cold wind, _maybe the poachers will stay grounded on their own. It’s stupid to fly in this weather, right?_

He fruitlessly squeezed water out of his jacket and climbed the ladder to the top platform.

No one seemed to notice him in their haste to load the ship with the cargo; he counted at least thirteen henchmen and every one of them was pushing large wooden crates. It gave him about thirty seconds to scan the platform for the best place to carry out his diversion before he realized everyone was so engrossed in getting the last few crates aboard to notice a drenched and shivering Pokémon Ranger standing nearby. None of them. It was like Dim Sun, except even more oblivious.

“Honestly,” he sighed, putting his hands on his hips, “Kincaid was probably right. Competent subordinates _are_ hard to come by.”

“One more!” someone yelled out, and Kellyn decided it was probably time to draw attention to himself.

“Howdy there,” he called out to the grunts pushing the last crate aboard. “Need a hand?”

The entire mood changed instantly.

“Grab him!”

The nearest henchman successfully nabbed his shirt sleeve, but he pushed his arm up and around to force the hand to release him. Another arm reached for him, but with all his intensive Ranger training, his reflexes were too fast and he danced back out of the way, spun around, and took off at a dead run in two swift movements.

He headed for the maze of tanks where he and Kate had hidden earlier, four henchmen hot in pursuit. If he could draw them this far away, he could navigate the tanks and throw them off his trail before doubling back to draw away anyone else who might be in sight of the far turbo engine. When he glanced back, however, he noticed three flaws in his plan.

First, instead of coming after him, the grunts who were still at the airship had finished loading the crates and were loitering around the ramp, mostly sheltered from the rain. Second, he could still see the far engine. And third, it occurred to him far too late that Pokémon Hunter J might be the kind of person who would leave her disposable lackies behind instead of waiting for them to come back to the ship.

“Damn it,” he hissed, and reversed course.

If he couldn’t cause a diversion outside the ship, his next best chance was to get _on_ the ship and wreak havoc. He would be able to free the Pokémon in the cargo, and even if Kate wasn’t successful disabling the engines, he could use the freed Pokémon to force Hunter J to remain grounded.

He fumbled with his Styler as he ran, flipping open the communication panel and jamming Kate’s code in.

“Kate. Kate. Come in.”

There was no response, and he remembered with a groan that he had ordered radio silence until after the diversion was successful.

“Damn it,” he said again, and ran harder.

When he reached the base of the ramp, he froze.

Hunter J stood at the top of the ramp, staring down at him, expression unreadable behind her sunglasses. He glared back with fists clenched, though his heavy, slightly shaky breathing betrayed his nerves, while she seemed unruffled as a statue.

He had faced down the Sinis Trio, Kincaid, Blake Hall, and even Darkrai. But there was a ruthlessness in Pokémon Hunter J, some kind of coldhearted indifference to anything but the thought of profit, that more than unsettled him. He could calm the raging darkness in the hearts of Pokémon. He would not be able to do the same with her.

She pulled a Pokéball from her pocket. He thought about telling her that Pokéballs were illegal in Almia, but then again so was everything she was doing, so he ran instead.

He made it about fifteen yards before a powerful claw smashed into him from behind and sent him face-first onto the concrete platform. As he was lifted from the ground by the same enormous arm, he gasped for breath; the impact had winded him. Warm blood from his nose mingled with the rain into his slightly open mouth but his arms were pinned to his side so he couldn’t lift a hand to wipe the blood away or even feel if his nose was broken. He inhaled slowly; blood and water bubbled up in his nasal passage and he snorted it out as softly as he could.

“Turn him around.”

The Drapion holding him turned, holding its prize out for Hunter J to assess. Seemingly unbothered by the sheets of freezing rain and howling winds, she stared him down for a moment before slowly pulling her dark glasses away from her face. Kellyn forced himself to stare back into her eyes—the coldest shade of blue he had ever seen—and she gestured at Drapion without taking her eyes from him, like some hungry bird of prey who had captured a particularly large Magikarp. Drapion pulled Kellyn’s arm free and held it out with its other claw; Kellyn’s elbow was scraped and bleeding lightly as well, he guessed from the impact of Drapion smashing him into the helipad.

J finally looked down at his wrist and Kellyn let himself exhale. A bubble of blood burst in his nose. “What’s this?”

Kellyn found his tongue. It also hurt, and he suspected he may have bit it on impact. “Don’t touch that—”

Unsurprisingly, she ignored him and grabbed his hand, turning his arm over so she could access the clasp release on the bottom of the Styler. “By the shoulders, Drapion. I want to get a good look at our guest.”

Kellyn gritted his teeth as Drapion moved its claw from pinning his other arm to his side toward holding Kellyn aloft by his arms like a doll. J glanced between the Styler in her hand and Kellyn’s uniform, which was thoroughly soaked and had spots of blood on it, and he could pinpoint the exact moment she figured out what he was.

“Law enforcement,” she said, and he tensed. His shoulders throbbed from the strain of Drapion yanking on them as they tried to hold his body weight. “What were you called?” She tapped the Styler against her chin.

“I said don’t _touch_ that.” His voice was slightly nasally from the damage to his nose, but he still managed to give her a good solid glare.

“Pokémon Rangers,” she said, pointing back at Kellyn with the Styler. “This must be your… Stylus? Though I seem to recall them looking a little different.” She frowned at it.

_Could it be that she doesn’t know about Top Rangers?_ he thought. If so, it could work out for him; she would have far more hostage capital if she knew he was a Top Ranger. It wouldn’t be the first time a Top Ranger had been used as a bargaining chip. And he and Kate both wore the uniform of Area Rangers when on routine patrol. The less he pretended to know, the better off he would be if she did decide to try trading him back to the Union for something.

She jerked her head at Drapion. “Take our new friend aboard. The worst of the storm has moved eastward, so we can take off now.”

Drapion threw Kellyn over its shoulder and followed J up the ramp of her airship. Kellyn knew better than to struggle; Drapion could break his spine in a heartbeat if J got tired of him.  

“Sir, what about the second shipment?” one of her henchmen asked.

“It probably got delayed,” J said indifferently. “Everyone aboard, we don’t have time to waste sitting here for it. We should have been out of here ten minutes ago if you all weren’t incompetent morons.”

There was an uneasy rumble of _sir_ and a few henchmen shrugged at each other before following her aboard.

J tapped her earpiece and placed her dark glassed back on. “This is J. Fire up the engines. We’ve got one Ranger who’s already discovered us and I would be surprised if he hadn’t alerted more to our location.”

The ramp lifted into place, dulling the sound of wind and rain to a metallic _clink_ against the hull of the craft. Kellyn surveyed the layout the best he could while bouncing upside-down over the shoulder of a large and cranky Drapion. The last of the crates were being pushed into a side hallway, presumably toward some kind of storage facility. Something about the crate—a large wooden one with only a single padlock—seemed off to Kellyn, but his attention was quickly diverted when Drapion dragged him through a sliding door into what was unmistakably the control room and the low rumble of engines whirring to life got louder.

If Kate had been unsuccessful, he realized grimly, he was on what might be a one-way free ride to Sinnoh.


	4. Sabotage

Clutching a metal support beam during a storm where lightning was a possibility wasn’t necessarily Kate’s idea of a good time but she waited, holding her rain-spattered mirror up just high enough to see where J’s henchmen waited. Two were loitering around the engine closest to her, apparently arguing about something with dramatic gestures. Neither looked ready to go anywhere, though there was indistinct shouting coming from the other side of the ramp.

She didn’t know what exactly Kellyn was planning to _do_ to create a diversion, but she hoped he would do it soon so they could get out of here.

Her Styler blinked once. Twice. Three times. She ignored it. Radio silence, she reminded herself, though unease settled through her body. It stopped after four blinks.

The shouting got louder, and the two arguing henchmen glanced over at something on the other side of the platform before abandoning their position.

_Time to go._

Kate swung up onto the platform and ran at a low crouch, the sound of yelling getting louder. By the time she reached the ship, she still couldn’t see everything that was going on, but judging by the angry tone of things something was pissing them off. She gave herself about two minutes to get into the engine, figure out what piece or pieces of the engine she needed to remove, remove it or them, and climb back out. All without being seen. And before the engine turned on and removed one or more of her body parts. But hey, at least the rain had slowed to a cold drizzle.

Easy-peasy, she thought grimly, hoisting herself up into it.

The turbine was roughly twelve feet in diameter, about the size of a standard Union-issue helicopter rotary, with each blade being half a foot longer than her entire body. It was smaller than she’d thought initially, but there was no way she was doing any damage to the blades, which seemed to be made of a very solid, very unbendable material.

Inside the engine, she couldn’t hear much of what was happening outside, so she pulled herself on top of the blades, balancing her feet on either side of the center engine as she glanced around for a piece she could remove.

Once, she read a book about a war where soldiers used helicopters to travel from site to site. On the helicopter rotor was a piece critical to the operation of the entire system—the rotor nut. As she had told Kellyn earlier, if the rotor nut was removed, the ship wouldn’t be able to fly. But as she crouched on the turbine and stared at the gears and bolts between her feet, she remembered something else she had read about them.

_They called it the Arceus nut, because if this piece were to fall off, get damaged, or come loose, the only thing left to do was to pray to Arceus._

She told Kellyn it would require a large socket wrench or a power tool to remove this piece. But here on J’s airship, the rotor nut was held in place by six screws, all just the right size for her to remove them with her screwdriver kit.

She pocketed each screw as she deftly removed them—though they were tightly wound, and it strained her wrist to twist them out, they came out easier than expected—and after pulling out the pin that held it in place, she paused long enough to check the time. Even giving herself two minutes was overestimating her speed; she’d been at this for three and a half minutes. She didn’t know how long Kellyn was going to be able to hold J’s attention before J ordered her crew to flip on the engines.

Removing the screws would certainly stall the engines, but what if the Arceus nut was held in place well enough to let the ship fly?

With only a moment’s hesitation, she twisted the nut from the rotor.

It _was_ tightly attached, but without the screws and the pin, it came off after about twenty seconds. In all, it took about the same amount of time to (hopefully) disable an enormous airship that it did for her to replace the lightbulbs in the visitor restroom at the Union. The problem was that it was large, about the size of her palm, and _heavy_ , and she certainly couldn’t carry it while maneuvering around the support beams under the rig platform. But she also couldn’t leave it; with how simple she found it to remove, the mechanics J would certainly have aboard an airship of this caliber would be able to replace it in a matter of minutes.

_Guess I’ve gotta take it,_ she thought, and started to climb down.

“We’re leaving,” a voice, startlingly close to her, said. Kate’s heart pounded as she dangled from one of the blades with one hand, the other clenching the rotor nut.

“What about the second—”

“She doesn’t care. Let’s go.”

The second voice grumbled but his conversation with the first voice faded quickly, as though they were booking it toward the ship. Kate hung from the blade for a few seconds longer, adrenaline coursing through her body, before throwing all caution out the window and dropping back to the ground.

No one seemed to see her, though she saw J’s silver hair and long black coat vanish onto the ship, an enormous Drapion that could have torn Kincaid’s in half with one claw right behind her with something indistinguishable slung over its shoulder. A few henchmen followed, including the two that Kate took to be the ship’s engineers, and the ramp lifted behind them.

Kate sprinted away from the ship, holding the rotor nut close to her chest; if anyone saw her, there was no indication of it from the ship. Her arms and legs grew heavy, but she didn’t stop until she managed to circle the entire way around to where the rusty oil tanks sat.

Kellyn was nowhere to be found.

Breathing heavily, Kate slumped against a tank, still holding the rotor nut to her body. As she wiped her bangs from her face, she noticed too late that her hands were covered in motor grease and the light drizzle was dripping greasy drops of rain down her face.

“Damn,” she muttered, letting her head thud against the cold metal tank.

Surely he wouldn’t have gone _too_ far, she decided; he was probably hanging out under the platform, or had escaped back into the sea…

A loud whirring sound caused her to jump slightly; the engines had been started up. Still holding the rotor nut, Kate held her breath, heart still hammering away.

A terrible grinding noise came from the left engine, where Kate had removed the piece, and it continued lurching for about five seconds before someone thought to kill the engine and the ship quieted.

Kate sighed with relief.

That plan had worked, but that didn’t answer where Kellyn was. Certainly, by now, he would have tried to contact her; his diversion had been successful, as had her sabotage of the airship; they should meet back up and decide whether they were going to wait for backup or attempt to storm the ship on their own, further stalling J’s plans until their backup arrived and the Union could clean up.

She was so lost in thought that five minutes passed before she knew it, and the notification light on her Styler was blinking again. This time, she didn’t hesitate to answer it.

“Kellyn, where the hell have you been, I’m—”

A cold silence greeted her and she froze.

“I seem to have underestimated this region’s law enforcement,” J’s voice said.

Kate couldn’t respond.

“I want the piece you stole from my engine back within the next ten minutes.”

“What have you done to—”

“If I don’t have it back,” J cut in, “ _Kellyn_ is going to pay.”

The connection cut out before Kate could say anything else.


	5. The Ruthless Hunter J

The bridge--or command center, or whatever it was called--was filled wth computer screens and control panels; henchmen barked orders at each other, pressed levers and buttons, and surveyed the computer monitors. J stood in the middle of the bridge, arms crossed, as Drapion shoved Kellyn in a chair facing what appeared to be the ship's security cameras. He glimpsed a room full of crates and strange cylindrical containers of various sizes covered in sheets before Drapion moved in front of him, leering down with a sinister grin. Kellyn held a defiant gaze for about twenty seconds before he had to look away.

"Fire up the engines," J ordered, settling herself imperiously in the chair in the very center of the bridge.

"Firing the engines," a henchman said, and pulled a lever.

The engines whirred to life slowly, a low rumble at first, before getting louder. Kellyn held his breath, fighting back the instinctive panic that Kate had failed in her quest. She hadn't been caught - he was sure that J would have brought her in to join him had they seen her skulking around the airship - but maybe she had no opportunity to get close to the ship--

The deafening sound of metal crunching crashed through the air, accompanied by a powerful lurch that would have thrown Kellyn out of his chair had J's Drapion not been holding him down. J, to Kellyn's mild disappointment, remained in her seat, though her knuckles were white from clutching the arms on her chair as the ship shook. 

"Shut it off!" J yelled over the crunching noise and the incessant beeping of the ship’s various alarm systems, and the order was repeated though her operators were already in the process of killing the engine.

The crunching and shaking stopped. Kellyn's ears rang in the abrupt silence. 

J stood, slowly, and everyone in the control room was silent, eyes on her. "What the hell was that?" she demanded of a pale-faced henchman who had ended up face-first in a control panel. 

“I—I don’t know, sir,” the henchman stammered, glancing at his coworker for support.

“Well, you’d _better figure it out!_ ” J barked, ripping off her dark shades as she stood with the same imperious authority she held while sitting.

The first henchman’s friend finally came to his aid. “It came from the left engine,” he said, not looking at J.

“Then go fix it, you imbeciles!” she roared, and the pair scattered, tripping over themselves in their haste to follow her orders. She ground her teeth before turning to Kellyn, who was trying very hard not to let his smugness in Kate’s mechanical prowess show on his face. But his pride in his partner evaporated the moment she pulled his Styler from inside her coat.

“What is this?”

He remained silent.

“Your tool, isn’t it? For Pokémon Rangers. That’s what you are.”

The smart part of his brain told him to keep his mouth shut, but the smartass part of his brain won the day. “I’m sorry, what was the question?”

Her expression didn’t change as she grabbed him by the jaw and gave his head a violent shake until he was looking her in the eyes. “How did you find out we were here, Ranger…” Her voice trailed off enough that he knew she expected a name.

He, of course, wasn’t going to give it up to her, and was still feeling particularly asshole-ish besides. “Assaulting a law enforcement official is a class-C felony,” he replied, voice slightly smushed, and he received an extra shake in response. His jaw popped and he flinched despite his best efforts.

“What. Is. _This._ ” She shoved the Styler in his face and he probably would have popped her in the face with his fist if her freakishly huge Drapion weren’t pinning him to the chair.

“I’m not really sure which question you want me to answer here, you’ve asked me three now.”

She gave him a withering look that indicated to him that she wanted to pop _him_ in the face with _her_ fist, but she straightened up instead and nodded to Drapion, whose grip on his ribs tightened. He grunted.

“I’m not going to waste my time with a brat like you,” she muttered, turning back to a computer monitor. “I’ll figure this out myself.”

Several henchmen glanced warily around at each other, but no one said a word for nearly five minutes, until the door opened and the two who had left to investigate the engine returned, one biting his lip nervously.

J straightened up. “You’d better have fixed it.”

“Uh…” Henchman A glanced at his companion, who grimaced. “Actually, sir, the rotor nut on the left engine seems to have… disappeared.”

 _Kate._ Kellyn couldn’t keep the pride off his face this time. Fortunately, no one noticed; all eyes were on J as she slowly tapped her fingernails on the keyboard, staring at her henchmen with a completely blank expression.

“Disappeared,” she repeated.

“Y-yes, sir. It’s not near the aircraft that we’ve found…”

She walked toward them, each step making a sound like a gunshot, and grabbed Henchman B by the collar of the shirt. “Get an extra one out of storage and _fix it_.”

“There-there isn’t an extra,” he squeaked. “We checked the engine before we departed and both rotor nuts were secure, so—”

“ _Someone better fix my goddamn ship!_ ” she roared, and everyone flinched. Even Drapion’s claw tightened until Kellyn wheezed from the lack of air, and J finally seemed to remember he was there. She let go of Henchman B and jerked her head at Drapion, who released Kellyn. “You. There’s a second one of you, isn’t there.”

Kellyn rubbed his ribs, wincing at the pain. “Just me,” he said, some of his bravado fading.

“We’ll see.” J made her way back to the computer monitor and picked up the Styler, turning it over in her hands. “I’m not from here, but I’ve heard of you. Pokémon Rangers. Law enforcement that control Pokémon temporarily and then let them go.”

“We don’t control them,” Kellyn said without thinking, half-rising from his seat. Drapion pushed him back down. “We get their help.”

J snorted. “Please. If a Pokémon Ranger wanted to control a Pokémon to do their bidding, they would, and you know it.”

Kellyn’s blood froze.

The Styler required training and education to learn to operate, the technology designed only to convey feelings of friendship to the Pokémon through the capture line. But it was always a fear at the back of his mind that someone else – like Kincaid – would come along and take the concept of the technology to turn it into a tool for crime and self-gain.

And in the hands of someone like Hunter J, who had wealth and talented engineers at her disposal, things could get very bad, very fast.

J’s smile made the hairs on his arms stand as she turned the Styler over in her hands again, fingers pressing different buttons until she found the one that opened the Voicemail function. A familiar voice came through after only a few seconds.

“Kellyn, where the hell have you been, I’m—”

The smile on J’s face took on an even colder cruelty as she took in the color draining from Kellyn’s face.

“I seem to have underestimated this region’s law enforcement,” J said to him.

This time, he couldn’t find the words to retort.

She turned her attention back to the Styler. “I want the piece you stole from my engine back within the next ten minutes.”

“What have you done to—”

“If I don’t have it back,” J cut in, eyes focused on the frozen Ranger she held captive, “ _Kellyn_ is going to pay.”

J severed the connection before Kate could respond. She turned back to Kellyn. “Looks like I was right. There _are_ two of you.” She laughed, a sound that Kellyn was sure would be in his nightmares for weeks. “She must be the smart one in the pair to know how to disable an airship. But how much does she like you? Enough to risk me getting away with poaching in your precious Almia region to save you?”

She turned her back on him and marched over to her monitor, leaning over the keyboard. Her fingernails tapped the keys as she huddled over it, her henchmen glancing between her and her captive and back around at one another, before she straightened up, an ominously triumphant sneer on her face.

“Ranger School companions,” she said, loud enough for the entire bridge to hear. “The youngest in the history of the Ranger Union.”

On the screen behind her, Kellyn could make out the front page of last year’s Almia Times, Volume 9. The issue where he was announced as the Union’s youngest Top Ranger. A picture of him and Keith... and Kate.

“Not just any Ranger, mind you,” she added, jabbing a finger in his direction. “No, no. We’ve found ourselves a rare specimen indeed. Boys, meet Kellyn, one of only twelve Top Rangers in the world.”


	6. Cease and Resist

He was trapped on an airship with a ruthless poacher, pinned in place by a very nasty Drapion, with his Styler out of reach and his partner somewhere out on the rig with a piece she had stolen from the airship engine, and the poacher—someone who looked like she was not only capable but willing to commit murder—had just figured out that he was one of only a dozen Top Rangers in the world. 

_Well,_  Kellyn thought,  _I've been in worse situations._

_Such as?_ the more skeptical part of his brain asked.

_I’ve got time, I’ll think of something._

"Top Ranger Kellyn," J said, triumph in the twisted smile on her face. "Although I would expect elite law enforcement to be more experienced. You're, what, fifteen?"

"Nineteen," he muttered with a scowl, but J was more interested in his Styler than a response.

"They train children to be law enforcement officials in this region," she mused, turning the Styler over again. "I'd assumed you were a rookie and underestimated you. I won't do that again."

He'd heard many, many bad guys say  _I won't underestimate you again_ but J definitely wouldn't. He was pretty sure if a preschooler had a candy bar that J wanted, she would have Drapion choke out the child to take the candy. 

Silence fell over the bridge, broken only by the rapid, nervous tapping of computer keyboards and the occasional squeaky swivel of chairs in desperate need of oiling. J alternated from watching the clock pulled up on a computer monitor to staring at Kellyn to tinkering with his Styler, an idle movement that spiked Kellyn's already heightened anger and anxiety for Kate. But he kept his mouth shut. 

"Your friend is out of time," she said after exactly ten minutes, "and the part she stole from me is still missing."

"You would think you would just go get another piece out of storage and put it in yourself," Kellyn said against his better judgement. 

Every henchman turned to look at him.

It was hard to tell from J's stony expression whether she wanted to drop him in the ocean or admired his ballsy response. Still, he met her gaze with his chin high and his face set in what he hoped was something resembling confidence.

She considered him for a minute. "I don't have any spare rotor nuts," she said with some vexation. 

Behind her on the security monitors, a screen flickered.

J and her henchmen, focused on Kellyn, seemed not to notice. But Kellyn noticed it, and the second and third monitors. 

_Kate._

He laughed, out of relief rather than mirth. "Sounds like a problem you won't have again, huh?" 

His efforts to keep J from snapping had, to this point, required him to keep his mouth shut. With Kate in need of continued diversion, he had to keep J's attention—and that of her Drapion and henchmen—on him, and that meant being a sassy asshole. 

"No," J said icily, "I won't."

"What are you doing with these Pokémon anyway?" 

"None of your business." She started to turn.

"Transporting Pokémon out of one region without interregional authorization is a Class-A felony under Code—"

She wheeled around and grabbed him by the jaw again, giving him a hard shake for emphasis. "If you don't shut the hell up, I'll have your body thrown in the ocean."  
  
_She definitely would._ "I don't think Sinnoh gave you prior authorization," he said, voice slightly muffled from her squeezing his cheeks together. Despite everything, he was almost proud of how much regional code he had retained from Kincaid's awful environmental policy class. Almost. He would definitely leave this out of his briefing report. It wouldn’t do to ruin his reputation as a terrible student.  
  
Her eyebrows shot up for a split second, but she regained her composure almost instantly. "Do you think that I have two collective damns to give about international environmental—” 

“Sir!”

“ _What_.”

“The engineering team has managed to pull something together to keep the ship up until we reach our first meeting point.”

“About damn time.” She let go of Kellyn’s face and walked back to her chair. “Prepare the ship for takeoff.”

The pilots scrambled to start up the engines. Kellyn tensed when the ship roared to life without the grinding metal sound it had made when Kate stole the piece; he had no idea what they might have used as a substitute, but it was working.

Kellyn looked up at Drapion. “Can you, you know, loosen your grip?”

It growled at him.

“Look, where would I even go?” Kellyn demanded, feigning exasperation (and fairly well, he thought).

Drapion considered this and made a motion with its arms that vaguely resembled a shrug before loosening its death hold on Kellyn’s shoulders.

“Get us out of this place.” J settled back in her chair and crossed her arms and legs. “I wanted to be halfway to—”

Her eyes settled on one of the security monitors, which, as misfortune would have it, had just flickered.

“Pull up the security footage for Cargo Hold 3,” she ordered, climbing to her feet again and giving Kellyn a withering glare.

Henchman C (Kellyn decided to call him Steve, as it was getting confusing calling them “henchmen” all the time in his head) pulled up a screen fixed on a dimly lit room full of crates and cylindrical containers covered in sheets.

“Rewind to five minutes ago.”

Steve obeyed, and the screen showed, for just a few seconds, the escape hatch opening before the video turned static.

“God _damn_ it!” J slammed her fist on the control panel. “Get a squad to the cargo bay. Another squad patrols the ship. Find this other Ranger, _right now_.”

“Sir!”

They were still leaving the bridge when J cleared the distance between the screens and her prisoner and practically threw Kellyn’s Styler into his chest.

“You will contact your partner,” she spat, “and tell her that if a single piece of cargo is missing, what happens to you next is entirely her fault.”

“She’s a very capable Ranger, isn’t she?” Kellyn said, surprised that the bravado in his voice was at least partly genuine.

J leaned so close to him that he could see details of his reflection in her visor. “Call her now, _Kellyn._ ”

“Can I have my arm back?” he suggested, and Drapion practically ripped it out of its socket as he held out Kellyn’s hand to type in the command to call Kate.

The voicemail rang three times before Kate answered in a tentative, worried whisper.

“Kellyn?”

“It’s me.”

There was a quiet exhale of breath on the other end. “Are you okay?”

“ _Okay_ is subjective,” he said after a second of contemplation. “Alive?”

Her quiet laugh was quickly stifled. “She’s listening, right?”

Kellyn glared up at J, who stood over him, tapping her finger impatiently on her elbow. “Yeah. Look, Kate, you’re a great Ranger. You’ve been awesome.”

“Getting both of us back to the Union is the important part of the mission,” Kate whispered.

“You’ve got a duty to restore balance and harmony between Pokémon and people.” Kellyn glanced at the computer monitors. He knew that, no matter what he said, she would give up the mission if it meant keeping him safe. “Don’t do what J says, period. I’m a pretty good Ranger myself, you know. I’ll be fine.”

J snatched the Styler back. “You’re a clever Ranger,” she said to Kate, “but cleverness isn’t going to help you now. I’ll find you, and you and Kellyn can meet the same fate.” She slammed the Styler shut and tossed it onto the floor, where it skidded a few feet away from Kellyn’s chair.

“Hey—”

“Get up.”

Kellyn struggled against Drapion’s grip in his effort to reach his Styler. “What?”

“I never repeat myself, Ranger.”

“I refuse.”

She snapped her fingers at Drapion and walked back to the center of the bridge, bending down to pull something from a small box on the floor. Drapion lifted Kellyn to his feet, let go, and left Kellyn, confused and swaying, facing the poacher.

“What—”

“I’m very, very tired of dealing with you, Kellyn,” J said, fastening a strange cylindrical bracelet to her wrist. She held it up, and without another word, there was a blinding flash of light.


	7. Countdown

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My apologies for the delay in getting this chapter up... I had to get a new computer, and then a couple of things happened in my personal life so I hadn't had much motivation for writing. I'm okay now though! Here you are.

Time ticked by at an impossible speed as Kate half-ran, crouched behind the oil tanks, toward the door leading into the rig. The rotor nut was too heavy to carry in her pouch, and she absolutely could not return it to the ship. And she couldn't throw it into the sea, for fear of harming some of the native Pokémon.

_You have ten minutes, or Kellyn is going to pay._

J had Kellyn. And there was no telling to what depths the ruthless Pokémon Hunter would sink if she didn't get what she wanted.

She skidded down the hall with reckless abandon; J's henchmen were certainly all on board the ship now, leaving the control center empty. But there was always the chance someone may have been left behind, accidentally or purposefully.

She pried the door of the control room open. It was exactly as she and Kellyn had left it, with the monitors still on but in idle mode. She had no interest in the computers now.

_Eight minutes._

Tossing the nut onto the desk, she turned to leave. In the dark corner, something caught her attention.

"Maaag."

In her panic, she had forgotten two things: first, she was a Pokémon Ranger, with the capability to calm and recruit Pokémon to help her complete tasks; second, the abandoned oil fields were filled with wild Pokémon after Altru had moved out to focus on clean renewables.

"I need your help," she whispered, and held up her Styler.

It took only a few seconds to enlist Magneton's help, and she was down to seven minutes as she sprinted back out toward the door leading to the platform. Magneton hovered behind her, keeping pace reasonably well. As she barreled through the door, she had a split second to decide which way to go to get back to the ship.

Taking the way she had escaped, through the steel beams belowdeck, would be the safer route in terms of getting there unseen, but it would take too long to navigate the maze of wet, cold metal bars. Though the rain had let up considerably, it was still slick, which meant she would have to take her time swinging from one bar to the next, and she did not have the time.

So she returned to the graveyard of rusting oil tanks, weaving in and out of them while keeping the ship clearly in sight. When she could no longer see the engineers who would doubtless be working on fixing the engine she had damaged, she ducked out from behind a tank and ran at a crouch toward the ship.

_Five minutes._

On the back side of the ship she spotted a small hatch door, roughly six and a half feet from the ground. When she reached up on her toes to open it, it was locked. Judging by the lack of a keyhole, the lock was electronic, and was probably meant to be opened primarily from the inside.

"Magneton, can you use Thunder Wave to disable the lock?" she whispered.

It sent a tiny spark of electricity at the door, which made the telltale sound of wires shorting out. She reached up tentatively, using the non-conductive tips of the glove on her right hand to tug on the door, which swung open with more ease than she expected. But the opening was still a foot and a half above her head, and there was no ladder or other means of climbing into the ship with ease, so she let out a frustrated sigh and prepared herself to undergo the gymnastics needed to hoist herself into the ship using nothing but her upper body strength.

"I wish I hadn't been in detention through gym class so much," she muttered, wiping her hands on her uniform.

"Maag."

She paused.

Of course; J would never let anyone on her ship without knowing, and judging by the location of the door, this might be a cargo bay. She wouldn’t even trust her own henchmen not to steal from her, probably. There was definitely a security camera in the room.

"Good call." She turned to Magneton. "Can you use Thunder Wave again to freeze anything electronic in there?"

"Tooon."

Kate waited ten seconds before taking a deep breath and jumping up to grab the ledge of the open door. She tried to ignore the voice in her head that reminded her she had only four minutes before her time was up as she swung her body back and forth like a pendulum until she had enough momentum to swing one leg up over her head, where she managed to catch her foot inside the door. Now, with her added leg strength, she managed to pull her body up into the room, scraping her other knee against the metal in the process.

"Ow."

She dragged herself to her feet, using a nearby crate for support, and peered around the dark room. It was definitely a cargo hold; crates and oddly-shaped containers with sheets draped over them were crammed tightly against the walls. Her stomach churned as she remembered the inventory list on the control computer.

_The cargo is Pokémon._

She reached up, hands trembling, and pulled the sheet of a nearby cylindrical piece of cargo.

Nothing could have prepared her for what she saw. Perhaps she'd thought J would just knock Pokemon unconscious and put them in cases they couldn't use their powers to get out of. But J, ruthless and cruel, had somehow developed technology that had turned an Alakazam into a statue.

"Oh--"

She stumbled back into a crate behind her, hand over her mouth. Her stomach churned; she feared she would be sick. Nearby, Magneton made a distressed noise and she forced herself to breathe.

_The Capture Styler conveys feelings between Ranger and Pokémon. A Ranger must remain calm in dangerous situations to maintain a tranquil bond between the two._

She forced her legs to move forward, reaching for another sheet, this time over a square crate. More Pokémon, these ones smaller--a Teddiursa, an Eevee, even (she had to force down vomit that was threatening its way up) a pair of Pachirisu--and with terrified expressions in their frozen stone faces.

Magneton made another noise, one that Kate recognized as halfway between anger and sadness, and she went to work removing the sheets from all of the crates until she was surrounded by statues of all shapes and sizes.

_One minute._

"I can't get all of these out myself," she whispered, stomping her foot in frustrated panic. It had taken a team of henchmen at least an hour to drag them all on to begin with. Though slightly shorter than her, the Alazakam itself would be...

She stared at the container. At Alakazam's feet was a small switch; it was not unlike the light dimmers at her parents' house. Maybe...

She strode to the door leading into the interior of the ship and slid it open cautiously, listening for footsteps as she fumbled in her pouch for her compact mirror.

"Tonnn?"

"Checking for danger," she assured the Magneton, and she poked the mirror into the hallway just enough to show her it was clear of henchmen. Tilting it upward slightly, she surveyed the hall for security cameras; there were two, one facing each side of the hallway. She turned to Magneton. "There are two cameras, can you disable them without frying their feedback?"

Magneton made a jerky motion that she took as a nod of sorts and released a tiny spark of electricity into the hallway. The hairs on Kate's arms stood up from the electricity in the air.

"Thanks," she said, closing the door again and turning back to the statues. She glanced at her Styler. Her ten minutes had come and gone. "Well," she whispered, "I'll be there as soon as I can, Kellyn. Hang in there."

She approached the Alakazam again. There had to be a way for J to turn the Pokémon she'd captured back to normal; either she had some kind of tool, or, more likely, the secret was in these identical cylindrical containers holding each Pokémon. She eyed the switch on the base, prepared her Styler, and used her toe to pull the switch down.

Preparing her Styler had been crucial forethought, because the second the switch had turned off, the Alakazam had returned to normal and the glass case covering it had vanished into the base somehow.

And it was _pissed_.

She released the disc as she dove out of the way of a Focus Blast, hopping on top of one of the crates to give herself more room to arc her arm; Alakazam fired off another attack, missing her but shattering a crate, causing some of the containers to scatter across the floor. She looped her arm a few more times, her circles getting sloppier as her hand shook. If she didn't calm it down soon, it might hurt some of the other Pokémon, and it definitely would alert J to her location.

"Please stop, I'm trying to help-"

Alakazam either didn't hear or didn't care, and aimed a wave of psychic energy her way, knocking her off the crates and into the wall. Her back seared with pain but she scrambled to her feet, wincing, and called out for Magneton to use Thunder Wave.

The Assist stopped Alakazam enough to allow Kate an opening to complete the capture, and Alakazam, dazed, looked over at the panting Ranger sitting on the floor.

"Heya," she said weakly. "I'm here to help."

Alakazam muttered confusedly, looking around the cargo hold.

The ship rumbled, almost knocking her off her feet; they seemed to have found a way to get the engine running again. Her sense of panic intensified again. Alakazam turned its head in alarm.

"We don't have much time. Can you teleport?"

It nodded.

"Good, good, I need you to teleport everyone back to Puel, can you do that?"

The Alakazam gave her a puzzled look and she sighed. "Um... okay... where are you from..." She popped open her Styler and pulled open the Browser, scanning it for anything that might help. She'd never captured an Alakazam in the wild and had no idea where they would be native, if they even _were_ native to Almia, but she found Abra's data and took a hopeful shot in the dark. "Chroma Highlands?"

A look of recognition crossed its face and her shoulders slumped in relief. "Okay, great. Take everyone to Chroma Highlands then, and I'll send some Rangers that way to help you out."

"Kazam."

"I have to save a friend and stop the person who did this to you." Kate smiled at it. "No worries, I'm great at this sort of thing."

The Alakazam nodded. In a flash, it and all the crates were gone.

Her ten minutes were way over now, and Kellyn was in danger. She had to find the bridge and stop J... and all of J's henchmen. And save Kellyn. And get off the ship.

And, and, and.

Footsteps echoed distantly and she froze. The sound of her battle with Alakazam had probably alerted J's henchmen to her presence, and she definitely didn't have time to escape this room through the hallway.

"Tonnn."

Magneton hovered over an air vent behind a crate. Kate groaned. She hadn't used an air vent to escape a room since her days at the Ranger School, when Kincaid caught her and Keith trying to escape detention through the air vent after she'd improvised a screwdriver using a paper clip and a binder clip. It was such a cliché and ridiculous means of escape that it was almost funny.

"No time for that now," she decided, clenching her fists. "Magneton, can you use your magnets to loosen the screws on the vent cover?"

It obliged, and Kate caught the cover before it clattered to the ground. The vent was large enough for her to fit, albeit uncomfortably, but the alternative was being caught. She collected the screws from Magneton and pointed at the door. "Thanks. Can you short out the lock on the door to stall for time?"

She didn't wait to see if Magneton was successful, but clambered into the air vent and started crawling along as quickly as she could. The vent forked; she followed it to the right. As she crawled, her Styler lit up, indicating an incoming call, and she bit her lip. Magneton bumped into her as she paused, fingers trembling again, and pushed the talk button.

“Kellyn?”

“It’s me.”

She sighed shakily. “Are you okay?”

“ _Ok_ _ay_ is subjective,” he said after a second of contemplation. “Alive?”

She stifled the humorless laugh that slipped from her mouth. “She’s listening, right?”

There was a brief pause. “Yeah. Look, Kate, you’re a great Ranger. You’ve been awesome.”

“Getting both of us back to the Union is the important part of the mission,” Kate whispered.

“You’ve got a duty to restore balance and harmony between Pokémon and people. Don't do what J says, period. I’m a pretty good Ranger myself, you know. I’ll be fine.”

“You’re a clever Ranger,” J interjected, “but cleverness isn’t going to help you now. I’ll find you, and you and Kellyn can meet the same fate.”

The line went dead, and with it, Kate's hope that she would be able to rescue Kellyn unharmed.

  



End file.
